has anyone tried the new Hornady ELD Match 30cal 208gr bullets

[bearcatrp]

Shot the 178 XLD's today. Nice. Only at 100 yards. Compared to 178 match I have a load developed for, the XLD needed 0.2 grains more (43.7-match, 43.9-XLD) to attain the same good grouping.

[bearcatrp]

Has anyone tried any of the XLD bullets at 1000 yards and compared them to other bullets? Will be trying them later @1000 yards later this spring having 178, 200 and 208's. Just wondering if anyone was getting good performance with these.

[savedsoul88]

Got tied up on a truck haven't gotten a chance to go out yet, just finished prepping 250 cases and loaded some increments to test to see where I hit pressure signs. I'll be going to the range tomorrow to start testing, I'll put a range report after tomorrow. It's gonna be with rel17 and the 208 eld match. From there I'll do the 200 eldx and some varget testing, hopefully I have a solid load for both and test them at 1000 later this week. Tomorrow will be out to 500 yards

[bearcatrp]

Do you have any other bullets to compare against the hornady's? Reloader 17? Hornady reload book show RL-15 but not 17.

[savedsoul88]

Quick report, I will post pictures and other stuff when I get home, here's the load I settled on, 47.2 gr of reloaded 17, 208 gr eld match, Fgmm brass, cci 200 primers, .010 off the lands ,trim to length and basic prepping. This load put me at 2638 average with a SD of 8.9. I shot a 47.9 load and had a small extractor mark but no other pressure signs, I probably could have upped this and maybe even got a faster load but 2638 is fast for a 208 and it being a safe load and shooting well I stopped on that. Maybe I'll try to push it later but I don't see the point, this keeps me super sonic till like 1500 yards and gives me about 1000lbs at 1000 yards. The load shot very well at all distances, I shot a group with some FGMM 175 and a group with the 208 load on each target at 200, 300, 400, and on steel at 500. Most over a chronograph to . I will say you can tell the difference in the recoil between that 208 and the 175, but it's very cool to be able to get those results out of a 308.

All of this was shot out of my 20invh 1-10 5r savage, stock barrel stock action, swfa 12x, mcmillian stock. This was shot off front and rear bags

I'll probably start the 200grn eldx rounds at about 47.8gr and see what I get. Hopefully I'll get to 1000yards soon with it

[bearcatrp]

Awesome to hear. Thanks for the report. I have a batch loaded of the 208's but wanted to get the 178's out of the way and find a good group to load from. For my 24 inch bull barrel, 5R, bone stock 10T, settled at 43.9 gr of varget with 2720 reading my chrono. I have a swfa 20x on mine (came from my 50BMG i no longer own). Want to wait until my Drake chassis comes in before trying the 208's. Will be trying 1000 yards around the end of march. Going to be fun. Thanks again. Don't forget the pics.

[bearcatrp]

You might want to weight some of your 208 XLD's. Just weighed 15 out of a box. Lowest was 207.94 and highest was 208.48. Weighed on a gempro 250. Only 2 weighed the same at 207.94 and 208.10, the rest were all different between the range I listed. For a match bullet would have thought they would be tighter to 208.00 +-.05. Or am I asking to must for a match round?
I emailed Hornady with the weights of the 15 I did to see what they have to say. Lengths of these are different too.

[Rob01]

Have you weighed many bullets? Because less than 1 grain is an awesome spread. Some can be in the 1grn to 2 grn spreads and even then they don't really effect the performance. hat you found is very good news.

[savedsoul88]

Ya that spread weight is pretty darn good, as for the length, I measure from the base to ogive and do most of my measurements that way, the only time I go to the tip is for magazine length checking. From what I found base to ogive out of the 20 I measured when I opened the box they were spot on.

[bearcatrp]

Started weighing bullets last fall when I was advised to check weights due to occasional fliers. Wasn't sure what the standard was. The ones I checked last fall were over 2 grains. For plinking I don't weigh but do for my bolt rifle. So your saying a 2 grain difference won't affect performance at 1000 yards? Was told the opposite from league shooters.

[Pet-Rock]

Started weighing bullets last fall when I was advised to check weights due to occasional fliers. Wasn't sure what the standard was. The ones I checked last fall were over 2 grains. For plinking I don't weigh but do for my bolt rifle. So your saying a 2 grain difference won't affect performance at 1000 yards? Was told the opposite from league shooters.

There are 7000 grains per pound. 2 grains difference between bullets might be enough to cause a flier, I honestly have no idea.

But for Hornady to get their spread down to +-0.05 grains means each bullet is within +-0.000007 lbs or +-.003 grams....thats insane

[bearcatrp]

Just got a reply from Hornady asking them about what I weighed. They stated up to .5 percent weight variation and be in specification. Going to weigh the rest of the box just to see comes up. Would have thought a match bullet would be allot closer but guess not.

[Rob01]

Go weigh other match bullets. It might surprise you. ;) Under a grain is very good.

[bearcatrp]

I weighed some 175 berger match I bought last year. Over 2 gr spread. But since I purchased them from someone on AR15.com, couldn't exchange them. Since then, I weigh all match bullets I buy.

[Rob01]

But how did they shoot?

[savedsoul88]

ok so heres the photos, i shot fgmm 175 at each target and the eld load, i know 3 shots isnt a real group but for the sake of testing and not wasting ammo thats all i did.

eld 100
http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll36/savedsoul88/208%20eld/IMG_0518_zpstv7wbklj.jpg (http://s284.photobucket.com/user/savedsoul88/media/208%20eld/IMG_0518_zpstv7wbklj.jpg.html)

eld 200
http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll36/savedsoul88/208%20eld/IMG_0532_zpsknin3ses.jpg (http://s284.photobucket.com/user/savedsoul88/media/208%20eld/IMG_0532_zpsknin3ses.jpg.html)

fgmm 200
http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll36/savedsoul88/208%20eld/IMG_0536_zps04itiv3h.jpg (http://s284.photobucket.com/user/savedsoul88/media/208%20eld/IMG_0536_zps04itiv3h.jpg.html)

eld 300
http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll36/savedsoul88/208%20eld/IMG_0537_zpsq632qp8i.jpg (http://s284.photobucket.com/user/savedsoul88/media/208%20eld/IMG_0537_zpsq632qp8i.jpg.html)

fgmm 300
http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll36/savedsoul88/208%20eld/IMG_0538_zpsq6rk9pxr.jpg (http://s284.photobucket.com/user/savedsoul88/media/208%20eld/IMG_0538_zpsq6rk9pxr.jpg.html)

eld 400
http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll36/savedsoul88/208%20eld/IMG_0539_zps0abnnhko.jpg (http://s284.photobucket.com/user/savedsoul88/media/208%20eld/IMG_0539_zps0abnnhko.jpg.html)

fgmm 400
http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll36/savedsoul88/208%20eld/IMG_0540_zpshffttk48.jpg (http://s284.photobucket.com/user/savedsoul88/media/208%20eld/IMG_0540_zpshffttk48.jpg.html)

eld top 2 3 shot groups ( head shot group and neck shot group)
fgmm bottom 2 3 shot groups
http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll36/savedsoul88/208%20eld/IMG_0524_zpsnjt1firc.jpg (http://s284.photobucket.com/user/savedsoul88/media/208%20eld/IMG_0524_zpsnjt1firc.jpg.html)

[bearcatrp]

What was the distance banging that steel?

[savedsoul88]

Sorry missed that part, 500 yards